Personalization in communications is not new. Direct marketers have used it in direct mail since the first computers and printers were used for marketing in the mid-twentieth century. Today, variable data printing technologies mean that marketers can personalize every word of a direct mail package, from outer envelope to letter, brochure and response device. Email marketers have had the same option since email’s first day.

Today, personalized email or direct mail communications don’t seem optional. Yet many marketers that use personalization often report poor results. So, what has held personalization back?

For years, the retail and financial services industries have emphasized customer engagement and the relationship. For the insurance industry, it's been different. Insurance companies would work to get new customers and often their relationships would be limited to sending a renewal notice every six months or a year. As competition increases, companies in the insurance industry need to find a new way to keep their customers engaged and avoid churn. Here are four ways insurance companies can make sure they are engaging their customers in the right way.

Direct mail marketing has experienced a major resurgence. Contrary to popular belief, even millennials read and respond to direct mail. Despite the emergence of countless digital marketing channels, consumers actually respond to direct mail more frequently than online channels. Why? Well, consumers view direct mail as credible. Yes, traditional direct mail techniques are still relevant — but technology is changing the game. Here are four ways one of the oldest forms of marketing has evolved in the age of technology. 

Maintaining customer loyalty and engagement has never been more difficult for businesses in the financial industry. With emerging free, convenient apps and alternatives to make payments the space has become very competitive for many financial services companies. To remain competitive, financial services marketers need to find a way to differentiate themselves from new competitors and provide value to their customers. Many have started to create loyalty programs to do this. According to PYMNTS, loyalty programs have expanded into many industries, with over 3.8 billion total U.S members participating in loyalty programs in 2017, they are no longer primarily for grocery and retail. Financial services loyalty programs require different thinking then a standard loyalty program, so here 3 ideas to focus on to make your financial services loyalty program successful.

Ecommerce tools have made it easier than ever for businesses to create and manage loyalty programs. But creating a quality loyalty program is not as easy. Sure, a store can create a program that offers points or deals to frequent customers, but the question remains — is the loyalty program serving its true purpose? That is, does it engage customers and give them a reason to keep coming back?

According to the COLLOQUY Loyalty Census, the average American household is enrolled in 29 separate loyalty programs — yet they only actively participate in about 12. With more choices than ever available to customers, it's critical to create a loyalty program that actually incentivizes each person to participate. 

Read on to learn four ways you can create a successful loyalty program.

That’s a wrap! Season one of the J&See: Views on Marketing podcast has officially come to close. Since its inception in May, the podcast has grown into something bigger than we could have imagined. The goal was to get listeners to see how everyone is a marketer in some way or another. To do this, we searched for experts across all industries to show how companies and individuals employ very different — and useful — marketing strategies. Take a look at our season one line-up below — and subscribe so you're one of the first to hear season two. 

Often times companies — especially start-ups — compete in a crowded space with competitors who have similar messaging, services or products. They end up trying to outspend the competition in the wrong places. But you can set your business apart when you know what you're doing. How? SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO is about knowing what your customers are searching for and connecting them with your goods or services.  

In this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, Meg Goodman speaks with Grant Simmons, a digital marketing expert who specializes in SEO. Grant and Meg break down what exactly SEO is, how it differs from SEM and how companies can take advantage of these each to drive meaningful traffic to their sites. Read on for a few helpful takeaways from his interview. And make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a conversation about marketing like this once a month.

As we head into a new decade, we look back on how marketing has become more digital and more difficult to navigate than ever before. As words like “artificial intelligence” and “big data” enter the conversation, it can be hard to know how these concepts fit into your own marketing strategy. Lucky for us, we have Danny Flamberg, a marketing consultant who specializes in leading businesses into the new, digital age. His book, Dancing Through the Digital Revolution: A Marketing Playbook, serves as a guide for marketers looking to take advantage of the digital marketing wave. In this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, Meg Goodman talks to Danny about the balance of personalization versus privacy, how data is more than a magic word and the impact of AI on our future. Read on for a few excerpts from their insightful conversation. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling interview like this once a month.

Nonprofits have the same goal as any company: to increase their reach and spread their message. Normally, that’s what a marketing team does for a company. Large corporations typically rely on an in-house team with a massive budget or an outside agency to build the company brand. Nonprofits have none of that. A nonprofit is expected to create effective campaigns to achieve their mission with a fraction of the budget that corporations have. Most of the time, they don’t even have a marketing team, the work simply gets unloaded onto other positions in the company. So how do they do it?

To answer the question of “how," Meg Goodman spoke with Brooke Wiseman. Brooke is the CEO of Blessings in a Backpack, a charity that mobilizes communities, individuals, and resources to provide food on the weekends for elementary school children across America who might otherwise go hungry. Brooke explains how nonprofits leverage corporate partnerships, volunteer evangelists and social media to compensate for the lack of resources available to them. Read on for a few excerpts from their insightful conversation. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling interview like this once a month.

Even as the use of social media and email push us further from written communications, direct mail is still one of the biggest marketing channels around. But as the world of marketing hurdles into a new digital age, direct mail has to adapt. To do that, marketers are now using customer data to personalize the user experience. Ron Jacobs, CEO of Jacobs and Clevenger, recently spoke on the Marketing Over Coffee podcast. In this episode, he talks about how brands must start hyper-personalizing in order to keep the attention of their customer base. Listen to the whole episode to hear Ron’s conversation with John Wall about direct marketing.